Chinese Army transgressed into Indian territory thrice in August : Reports

The Chinese Army transgressed into the Indian territory thrice in August in Uttarakhand, as reported by news agency ANI on Wednesday quoting sources. This comes after a report in August that a group of Chinese Army personnel had intruded into the Demchok area in eastern Ladakh.

According to the ANI report on Wednesday, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) transgressed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and crossed over as far as four kilometres into the Indian Territory in Barahoti village in the Chamoli district of the state.

Similar incidents occurred in July 2017 when Chinese troops ventured up to a kilometre into Indian Territory in Barahoti. This area also witnessed aerial transgressions and infiltration by foot patrols in 2013 and 2014.

Speaking on transgressions along the LAC by the PLA, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC) Northern Command, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh earlier this year said, it "took place in areas where we have different perception of the Line of Actual Control," adding that India and China have well-established mechanisms, especially at the highest level, where special representatives from both the countries discuss issues related to the resolution of the boundary dispute.

LAC is a 4,057-km porous border between India and China and runs through glaciers, snow deserts, mountains and rivers.

Earlier in August, a group of Chinese Army personnel transgressed around 300 metres into the Demchok area and pitched four tents. Officials said the Chinese troops came to the Indian side of the border in the garb of nomads and pitched the tents.

The transgression took place in the first week of July and days later, four out of the five tents were removed by the Chinese troops after the Indian side officially took up the matter with their local commander.

The sources said such transgressions are not unusual and that all such incidents are taken up at the appropriate level with the Chinese authorities. India and China share a nearly 4,000-km-long border.

The number of transgressions by the Chinese Army into the Indian territory rose to 426 in 2017 from the 273 in 2016, according to official figures.

The latest incident of intrusion came nearly a year after Indian and Chinese troops were locked in a 73-day standoff in Doklam. The face-off had started on June 16 and ended on August 28, 2017 when the Chinese stopped building road in the disputed trijunction of the Doklam shared between India, China and Bhutan.

India shares a long border of 4,057 kilometres which is termed as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) divided into three sectors viz the Northern, Middle and Eastern sectors starting from the state of Jammu and Kashmir to the eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. The issue of the borders remains disputed as the Chinese perception differs from the position of the borders as claimed by India.

In April 2018, the two leaders of India and China had got together in Wuhan Province for an informal meeting where both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping had expressed their support for the work of the Special Representatives on the India-China Boundary Question and had urged them to intensify their efforts to seek a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement.

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